ToM classes - how do they hold up?

[WarlockLord]

Tome of Magic has been out for a bit now, and I thought this would be a good time to get feedback on the classes. My opinions:

Binder: A good, versitale class. Can do just about anything. My friend runs a binder all the time, it's just about the only character class he ever plays.

Shadowcaster: Do not use with LA. I tried a drow shadowcaster, and he was pretty bad. Could use a better attack fundamental than arrow of dusk. x3 on a crit is pretty useless, I'd rather have the ability to deal lethal damage.

Hypothetical Fundamental:

Warp Shadow
1st/Transmutation
Range: Medium
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You reach into the Plane of Shadow, twisting your foe's shadow reflection and causing him great pain.

This fundamental deals 1d8 damage +1 per caster level (max +5)

This might make the shadowcaster workable at low levels.

Truenamer: Haven't tried him yet.

 

[Schmoe]

I'll preface this by saying I haven't looked at the Binder or Truenamer closely, and I haven't actually played any of the classes in a game.

That being said, the Shadowcaster looks to be extremely limited:

- He will only ever knows one mystery per class level, so the number of powers he will have is pretty small.
- He can only use his highest-level mysteries once per day, each. No bonus mystery uses for you! At the most, he can use one of his lowest-level mysteries three times per day. That means if you know only know one offensive mystery, you only get three offensive actions per day. If your offensive mystery is higher level, and thus more appropriate for the challenges you face, it gets worse.
- The selection of mysteries is tied to your path, and you have to know each previous mystery in a path before selecting another in the path. That means that, if you want a mystery later in the path you are stuck taking the earlier mysteries, whether you want them or not. Since your mystery uses per day are tied directly to the mysteries you know, that could make some of your already limited mystery uses worthless.

Let's take a hypothetical shadowcaster who wants to focus on offense (not necessarily damage, but directly affecting enemies in combat, which is a large part of the game). I'm going to ignore fundamentals, as they are relatively minor (pretty much 0-level spells).

At 6th level, he has 6 Apprentice mysteries. He can use each Apprentice mystery once per day. That means he has a total of 6 "spells" he can cast per day. Compared to a wizard (assume Int of 16), the wizard also has 12 spells per day.

In addition, the shadowcaster only knows a total of 6 mysteries. The wizard has, at a minimum, 14 spells to choose from. The wizard could also choose to memorize any of his spells multiple times per day, if the situation requires it. The shadowcaster's uses per day have been determined for him.

The available selection of mysteries also leaves a lot to be desired. Our shadowcaster could, at most, have about 2 offensive Apprentice mysteries, for a total of 2 offensive spells per day. The wizard, if he wanted to, could use all of his 12 spells for offensive power. That's a huge discrepancy.

As far as I can tell, there is no way to learn additional mysteries other than the 1 per level, there is absolutely no way to increase the number of uses per day, and the selection of mysteries is relatively inflexible and limited. For a class whose main (only) shtick is using mysteries, that smells like a frustrated player waiting to happen.

Any thoughts?